State v. Carter

614 S.W.3d 74

STATE of Missouri, Respondent,

v.William G. CARTER a/k/a Billy Carter, Appellant.

WD 83120

Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District.

Filed: September 29, 2020

Motion for Rehearing and/or Transfer to Supreme Court Denied October 27, 2020

Application for Transfer Denied January 26, 2021

Gregory L. Barnes, Jefferson City, for respondent.

Irene C. Karns, Columbia, for appellant.

Before Division Four: Cynthia L. Martin, C.J., P.J., and Alok Ahuja and Edward R. Ardini, JJ.

Alok Ahuja, Judge

William Carter is currently involuntarily committed to the custody of the Department of Mental Health for care and treatment at Fulton State Hospital. Carter is committed on two separate statutory grounds: (1) pursuant to § 552.040,¹ as a result of a finding in 2002 that he was not guilty of certain sex offenses by reason of mental disease or defect (an "NGRI" finding); and (2) pursuant to a finding following a jury trial that he is a sexually violent predator under § 632.495.

Carter applied for unconditional release from his NGRI commitment. The circuit court denied Carter's application following an evidentiary hearing. Carter appeals. He argues that the circuit court erred in denying his application for unconditional release because it failed to consider that, even if he is released from the NGRI commitment, he will remain in Department of Mental Health custody in a secure facility pursuant to the separate order committing him as a sexually violent predator.

We affirm.

Factual Background

In January 2000, Carter was charged in the Circuit Court of Macon County with forcible sodomy, kidnapping, first-degree burglary, felonious restraint, and deviate sexual assault. The charges arose from an incident in which Carter removed his sixteen-year-old female victim from a neighboring home, took her to his own home, and sexually assaulted her. The case was transferred on a change of venue to Adair County. On January 21, 2002, the circuit court accepted Carter's plea of not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect, and ordered that he be committed to the custody of the Department of Mental Health for care and treatment.

Carter applied for conditional release from Department custody less than a month later. Following an evidentiary hearing, the circuit court denied Carter's application. We affirmed. State v. Carter , 125 S.W.3d 377 (Mo. App. W.D. 2004). Although Carter contended that the circuit court's finding that he suffered from a mental disease or defect was not supported by substantial evidence and was against the weight of the evidence, we held that "[a]n insanity acquittal creates a presumption of continuing mental illness," and that, "[a]s long as the presumption of continuing mental illness has not been broken following an acquittal by reason of insanity, the burden of proof need not shift to the State and remains on the insanity acquittee to prove that he no longer has a mental disease or defect rendering him dangerous to himself or others." Id. at 380 (citations omitted). We held that the circuit court, as fact-finder, could properly have disbelieved Carter's evidence suggesting that he no longer suffered from a mental disease or defect, and that its "finding that Mr. Carter continues to suffer from a mental disease or defect was supported by substantial evidence and was not against the weight of the evidence." Id. at 382.

Triggered by Carter's application for conditional release, the State evaluated Carter and commenced a separate proceeding to have him involuntarily committed as a sexually violent predator under § 632.495. In 2003, a jury found Carter to be a sexually violent predator and, based on that finding, the circuit court entered a separate judgment committing Carter to the custody of the Department of Mental Health under § 632.495. We affirmed this judgment on appeal. In re Care and Treatment of Carter , No. WD63327, 147 S.W.3d 872 (Mo. App. W.D. 2004) (mem. ).

In June 2015, Carter filed a second application for conditional release from his NGRI commitment. The circuit court denied Carter's application for conditional release as moot.

The trial court reasoned that any relief granted to Carter on his application for conditional release under section 552.040.10 would not afford him "any effectual relief" because Carter would remain civilly committed under the SVP Act. Accordingly, the trial court held that "as long as [Carter] remains a[n] SVP under civil commitment pursuant to [the SVP Act], any relief granted under Section 552 is moot."

State v. Carter , 551 S.W.3d 573, 575 (Mo. App. W.D. 2018).

We reversed. We drew an analogy between Carter's dual commitment under chapters 552 and 632 and a criminal defendant who is sentenced to concurrent terms of incarceration for separate offenses. Courts have held that a defendant's challenge to less than all of the convictions giving rise to concurrent sentences is not moot, since a defendant might be " ‘subject ... to disabilities and legal consequences unique to th[e] [challenged] offense.’ " Id. at 576 (quoting State v. Reynolds , 819 S.W.2d 322, 326 (Mo. 1991) ). We held that the same principle should apply to Carter's dual commitments, and should permit him to seek release from one commitment order even while the other remained in effect. We explained that Carter's two commitment orders, and his potential release from those commitment orders, were subject to separate statutes, having separate standards and procedural requirements:

[c]ivil commitments pursuant to an NGRI plea and an SVP determination are each subject to statutory procedures for securing release. Conditional release from an NGRI commitment can be sought pursuant to section 552.040.10, and unconditional release can be sought from an NGRI commitment pursuant to section 552.040.5. Conditional release from an SVP commitment can be sought pursuant to section 632.498.3. In either case, the court entertaining the application is bound to consider statutory factors, subject to the standard and burden of proof specified by statute. To suggest, however, that a court can deem moot an application filed pursuant to one basis for civil commitment simply because the applicant is concurrently committed pursuant to the other basis for civil commitment is to deprive the committed person of any opportunity to secure release. A concurrently committed person must be able to start somewhere. Though Carter cannot be actually released from confinement given his concurrent SVP commitment, he is nonetheless entitled to a hearing and a determination with respect to whether grounds supporting conditional release from his NGRI commitment have been established.

Id. at 576-77. We remanded the case to the circuit court for further proceedings on Carter's conditional-release application. Id. at 578.

On remand, Carter filed a pro se application for unconditional release from his NGRI commitment. On March 15, 2019, the court held an evidentiary hearing at which Carter (represented by appointed counsel) elected to proceed solely on his application for unconditional release.

The circuit court denied Carter's application for unconditional release on August 15, 2019, in an eleven-page judgment containing detailed findings of fact. The circuit court found that Carter continued to suffer from Delusional Disorder, although the illness was in remission based on the administration of anti-psychotic medication. The court found that, although Carter "may not be verbalizing delusional symptoms, ... he has refused to actively participat[e] in treatment groups ... where his mental status can be evaluated by mental health professionals." The judgment emphasizes that the symptoms of Carter's delusional disorder would return if he stopped taking his medication. The court found that Carter had "refused to take his anti-psychotic medication several times while inpatient at DMH facilities," and had been subjected to involuntary medication orders in 2005, 2007, and in 2011. The court noted that Carter had discarded his medication, and had repeatedly requested that the dosage of his medication be reduced, reflecting "his limited insight into his need for medication for his mental illness." The judgment found that "if given a choice [Carter] will not take anti-psychotic medication freely and willingly without measures in place to compel him to do so."

The court found that Carter's underlying offenses were "violent crimes ... [which] have had a traumatic and everlasting impact on his victim." The court found that, "[e]xcept for November 2011 to the summer of 2013 [Carter's] behavior while in DMH custody has been riddled with problematic, inappropriate behavior, and non-compliant behavior." The court noted that Carter had "refus[ed] to engage in treatment modalities offered to him for the last four years." He had also "accumulated one hundred and four problem worksheets for inappropriate behavior" in a four-month period. The court noted that Carter had repeatedly been placed on telephone and mail restrictions, most recently for the past four years, because he had tried to contact his victim and Department staff members at their residences, had written threatening letters to individuals outside the facility, and had obtained pornographic material through the mail, including "some that included sexual violence." The court found that "[w]hile in the custody of DMH [Carter] has on four separate occasions become fixated on four different female staff in a manner similar to his committing offenses." In at least one of those cases, Carter's inappropriate behavior toward a female staff member occurred while Carter was not taking his anti-psychotic medication.

Ultimately, the court concluded that Carter "has not met his burden of showing by clear and convincing evidence that he would not be dangerous to himself or others if unconditionally released." The court found that, if released, Carter "is likely to commit another violent crime against another person because of his...